Quick response prevents spread of Wasilla blaze

WASILLA — A quick response by Central Mat-Su firefighters and quick thinking by neighbors combined to keep a fire at a Wasilla four-plex from becoming a much bigger disaster Sunday afternoon.

According to Mat-Su Borough Fire deputy director Ken Barkley, crews confined the damage mostly to the unit where it started. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire on Snohomish Avenue was not immediately known Sunday afternoon.

Resident Tim Reid said he was alerted something was amiss when he heard his upstairs neighbor yelling.

“She came out of her apartment screaming ‘Fire!’” Reid said while watching firefighters finish putting out the blaze.

Next-door neighbor Matt Roberts said he and his wife, Heather, saw smoke and immediately called 911. Heather Roberts then began trying to help get people out of the building. It was a chaotic scene, she said, with at least one elderly woman and a little boy needing help getting out of the complex. She also said a dog that was inside the building survived the blaze.

“It was really hard directing everyone but my husband and I stuck it out,” Heather Roberts wrote. “You never really realize how confused people get in a terrible situation like this but thankfully no one was hurt.”

Reid said he helped shepherd residents out of the complex before grabbing an extinguisher and trying to fight the fire.

“I tried to slow it down a fast as I could,” he said.

The flames quickly grew too large, too fast, so Reid said he shut the door and bailed.

Firefighters arrived at the gray four-plex, he said, in what seemed like a flash.

“They were here pretty god dang fast,” he said.

Heather Roberts confirmed the speed of the rescue crews in a Facebook message sent Monday. From the time her husband called 911, she said it was probably two minutes until the first crews arrived.

“It's amazing how fast everything happened,” she wrote.

Barkley said crews were able to knock the fire down fast enough to keep it from spreading to the three other units in the two-story building.

“I think it’s contained to the point of origin — the apartment it started in — and the roof,” he said.

Barkley said two women were inside the apartment that caught fire, but that both escaped unharmed. The female tenant, he said, is partially blind. She was placed in an ambulance outside the building, but Barkley said that was just so she could warm up. Temperatures at the time in the residential neighborhood off Wasilla Fishhook Road were in the upper 30s.

Barkley said the Red Cross was responding to the scene to help residents with emergency needs. He was hopeful the power could be restored to the three unaffected units quickly, but said as many as eight people might be temporarily homeless.